Filed to story: Return of the Reaper Story
“Let’s go shopping.” Gunny grinned and ran his fingers along the racked rifles and shotguns.
Isaac picked out a cut-down M-4 with a heavy rubberized forestock. Gunny told him it had a reinforced action and worked as smooth as a duck’s ass. For the long gun he stayed with the classics: a Winchester model 70 in a Rynex stock. The handgun choices were a Sig Sauer nine and a hammerless Colt snubbie in .38 special, both in stainless.
“These are all off the books?” Isaac said.
“Hell, not only are they not here now, they never was anywhere,” Gunny said, pulling down fresh boxes of ammo and magazines for the Mike and Sig.
Before they were done Gunny insisted Isaac take a shotgun, a cut-down Mossberg Mariner with a pistol grip.
“Nobody was ever sorry they brought one of these along,” Gunny said.
“You know you’re not getting any of these back, Gunny,” Isaac said.
“I’m countin’ on it. You use ’em and lose ’em. Just bring your ass back here to your little one.”
“I think I have what I need here.”
“How about a few bricks of C-4, Slick?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
They made four trips from the arsenal to the gravel lot in front of the cabin. Isaac dropped the tailgate of the Avalanche.
“You can’t take the truck you came here in. You drove it up from Tampa. They’ll have the plates,” Gunny said.
“I’ll switch plates somewhere on the road.” Isaac lifted two plastic ammo cases up onto the gate. Gunny put his hand on Isaac’s wrist.
“You’ll take our Ranger Rover. She’s old but she runs good. You switch plates on her and you’re in stealth mode again.”
“Can’t do that.”
“You will or you ain’t leaving here.”
“You were never able to keep me any place I didn’t want to be, Gunny.”
“That hurts. That’s cold, Slick.”
Gunny’s smile broadened as his grip on Isaac’s wrist tightened.
“All right. I’ll take the Rover. Joyce won’t mind?”
“She won’t.”
A final squeeze and Gunny released Isaac’s wrist.
They loaded the Rover and went inside the cabin for breakfast.
“The girl. It has to be the girl,” Dimi said to the phone held before him.
“What girl? Who is this girl?” Uncle Symon’s face filled the screen.
“A girl. I was in Skip’s. College girl.”
“All of this for some bitch? What is this bullshit?”
“The police came looking for her. They came to Skip’s. They learned nothing.”
The image on the screen shifted then settled. Uncle Symon’s dark eyes studied Dimi’s face across the space that separated them. The secret to Dimi’s entire future was in those eyes.
“What do the police know, Dimi?”
“Nothing! No one told them anything. Not a fucking word, uncle.”
“Who was this bitch? Who would come looking for her?”
“I have all of that. I mean, I can get it. I sold her driver’s license and credit cards. I can tell you who.”
Dimi gave the name and location. Symon wrote them down then broke the connection, cutting off his nephew as the man began to plead to be released.
Symon selected a cell phone from the row on his desk and called Karp and Nestor.
There was something liberating about it all.
Dr. Roth rode back home in the back seat with Marcia’s body in the trunk. The two men removed him from the car, the smaller man holding his elbow to help him into the house. The larger man hefted Marcia from the trunk and carried her up to the porch and inside.
It was all so unreal. He was naked in broad daylight. His wife was being brought home with half her skull missing. Over the border hedge in the front yard he could hear a neighbor’s leafblower whining. Children shouted at play somewhere down the street. High overhead the contrail of a commercial jet cut the sky in half. All around life went on even as Jordan Roth’s world teetered at the edge of oblivion.
The smaller man kept watch on Jordan while he pulled on clothing and packed three more changes into an overnight bag with no attention to coordination.
“Your pad?” the smaller man asked holding out a hand for the zippered bag.
“In my office.”
The smaller man gestured and Jordan led the way downstairs. There was a sharp chemical smell in the air. Gasoline. Coming from the cellar.
The larger man rejoined them as they were leaving the office. He had three dark bottles cradled in one arm. He’d been in the cellar. Jordan was curious as to what vintages the man chose to take. They exited the house together. Jordan was allowed to sit in the back seat. His bag went in the trunk.
He looked from the rear window of the car as they backed down the driveway to the street. A fog of smoke was rising from the basement window wells. A fire.